


Shirtless

by ficteer



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Ogling of muscles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3418640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficteer/pseuds/ficteer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cotton can get in the way, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shirtless

**Author's Note:**

> another pic fic!!!!! this time it's the lovely myra ([queenoftheantz](http://queenoftheantz.tumblr.com/)) who has inspired me with this picture [here](http://queenoftheantz.tumblr.com/post/111376642784/a-while-ago-i-saw-some-drawings-of-mihashi). i lost my soul that day.

It wasn’t often that he got to spend time with Mihashi like this, is Abe’s thought as he slowly wakes from his nap, eyes still closed as he snuggles further into the warmth of a bed that smelled nothing like his own. Mihashi-san used something a little more hypoallergenic, a little less floral than his own mother’s preference, something focusing more on a clean smell than a nice smell. But more interesting than that is the shampoo clinging to the cotton, different from his own, the same masculine smell he got when he buried his nose into Mihashi’s hair in the empty morning dugout first thing, wrapping the blond into warm arms and a warmer kiss.

Arms that were, as a matter of fact, devoid of his pitcher at the moment, in a most irritating fashion. Abe cracks open a bleary eye, peering at the other side of Mihashi’s yellow sheets and finding himself quite alone. Not wanting to get up but definitely wanting Mihashi there, Abe sits up slowly, just in time for him to squint into a hall light breaking the blackness of the room with a slicing sliver.

“Ren?” he mumbles, only belatedly hoping that it was indeed his blond boyfriend and  _not_  his blond boyfriend’s  _mother_  he’s calling to, not because their relationship was much of a secret after she walked in on them making out on the kitchen counter, but because he’s not too interested in swallowing down the embarrassment of having to make eye contact with her so soon after the filthy things he’d thought about doing to her son right before their nap. (Maybe soon he’d be able to get Mihashi’s shirt off while they were smooching, he’d thought, falling into his dreams with an excited grin on his face. All the times they’d kissed and never had he touched that bare skin.)

Abe gets his answer by the soft closing of Mihashi’s bedroom door and the shuffle of feet followed by lethargic knees and elbows and legs cascading back into bed, familiar arms wrapping around his neck and dragging him back into a lying position as Mihashi half-lies on top of him. There’s a murmur against Abe’s collarbone, and then a kiss that’s a little too wet for it to be completely conscious, more an open drag of lips than an actual attempt at intimacy. But it’s enough, and Abe’s arms feel full and warm again as they slide around Mihashi’s body once more.

Mihashi slurs something Abe sort of takes as an explanation for why Abe had found himself alone upon waking,  _bathroom_  maybe, and Abe exhales into blond strands, letting his smile curve ever so slightly where Mihashi can’t see it, which almost makes him sad because nothing quite gets a pleased reaction out of Mihashi like a smile. But then he wonders if maybe Mihashi felt it against his skin, because he wriggles, gets onto his side and pulls, and then they’re so wrapped up in each other lying side by side Abe can hardly tell where he ends and Mihashi begins. It’s nice, he thinks, letting his fingertips slide up the back of Mihashi’s shirt to explore increasingly familiar indentations of spine, working on memorizing them.

His skin is soft here, Abe thinks, letting his thumb trace the bottom of Mihashi’s shoulder blade, the gentle curve of bone that shifts smoothly beneath soft muscle. He knows this part of Mihashi best, probably, he thinks, because these are the pitching muscles. Or maybe it’s the hand curling into his hair, fingernails slightly scraping at his skin in the kind of mindless action that’s not quite directed enough to be arousing. It’s just Mihashi’s way of showing affection, Abe knows, one of the things he just does because he’s Mihashi. Sort of like the way he’s always touching Abe, somehow, be it their knees on the train, or reaching out to hook his fingers in the fabric of Abe’s shirt when they’re in a crowd, or the way his arm curls into Abe’s when they’re sitting next to each other on the bench watching their underclassmen play a practice game, muttering to each other under lemon-scented breath about how far they’ve come.

Or at least, that’s what he thinks, but then Mihashi’s hand drifts from his scalp down to his throat, and to his shoulder, and then to his bicep, and then Mihashi presses lightly, not quite a push, but a little firmer than a simple caress, and even half-awake, Abe recognizes the difference. He pulls back just enough to look down at Mihashi’s face, which is flushed a light pink. “Ren, what’s up?” he asks, and eyes that burn golden in the streetlight barely flirting with the window behind them meet his own, wide and curious.

“Muscles,” Mihashi says as an explanation, as if that’s sufficient, and perhaps in their past it wouldn’t have been. But Abe’s had time to learn Mihashi now, and he thinks maybe he can kind of understand. His suspicions are confirmed when he rolls back until he’s pressed into the bed, Mihashi crawling until he’s leaning over him, fingers pressing into Abe’s flesh and testing the give. “They’re soft.”

“I sure hope not,” Abe says, feeling his lips curl in groggy amusement. He flexes a bit to make them hard beneath Mihashi’s inquisitive pinches, and Mihashi giggles into the skin of Abe’s shoulder, flattening his hand until his palm is warm against the chest beneath it. The second kiss here is more distinct than the first had been, minutes ago, and this time, Abe feels the kick in his heart rate.

“I like your muscles,” Mihashi whispers to his jaw, a third kiss slow and thoughtful against a pulse a little too quick for how close he’d been to sleep just moments ago. Abe swallows past it, letting his arm bend at the elbow where Mihashi had been lying on it before, his fingers curling on Mihashi’s side around his back, the cotton of Mihashi’s shirt filled with the blond’s surprising body heat. Maybe this’ll be it, he wonders, swallowing a second time, tilting his face until his mouth can slant nicely beneath Mihashi’s, but he feels the sleepy lethargy in the sweep of Mihashi’s tongue against his own, in the delayed softness of the groan when Abe lets his other hand reach up to cup Mihashi’s jaw, and he knows that it’s not tonight, not yet.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he says instead, and Mihashi nods, curling against him, threading their legs together as much as their fingers on Abe’s chest, and it’s not long before Abe himself falls back asleep, warm and impossibly content.

They wake early the next morning to an unfriendly alarm, brushing teeth and getting dressed and blinking fondly at each other in a bathroom mirror’s morning reflection. Breakfast is ready by the time they get downstairs, and with a smooch to both of their heads, Mihashi-san sends them off to school on their bikes to another long day of baseball beneath the summer sun. And long indeed it is, Momoe’s iron fist keeping their noses to the grindstone until finally the end of the day comes at the expense of just about all the energy out of Abe’s body. The summer sun is hot, he’s sweaty, and the foray of a shower is calling.

He takes his hat off to cool his head, hands reaching down to his pants and pulling both his jersey and his undershirt from where they were tucked neatly into his pants. The introduction of air against his hot skin already feels good, and in a quick move, his hands are over his head, gripping both shirts at once, and he pulls to relieve himself of the sweaty barrier.

It’s only then that he feels the stare, and he looks over curiously, just in time to see Mihashi’s eyes study each dip of muscle as Abe works the shirts from his upper arms down until he was holding them instead of wearing them. Even though they’ve kissed, even though the soft memory of Mihashi’s stuttering ‘I like you too!’ is as fresh in Abe’s mind as if he’d heard it yesterday (which he had, but not for the  _first_  time), it’s exciting, knowing that Mihashi reciprocates these warm strange feelings in his gut, that he’s not alone in this burning affection, that Mihashi’s eyes wander just as much as Abe’s do. It’s like a straight shot of pride and delight to his system, and he feels his spine straighten, feels the smirk curl onto his lips.

“Hey,” he says, knowing that his voice is already dipping down a bit lower, half because he knows he can make Mihashi shiver like that and half because he can’t help it. He expects Mihashi’s face to turn pink - and it does - and for his mouth to form a little wordless shape - and it does, but not the shape Abe’s expecting. He expects Mihashi to be flustered, to curl his fingers into his own shirt - which he does - but not like this, not to pull and tug, not to grip with a coy smile that says  _oh but you’ve got something coming, Takaya_  - but he  _does_ , they  _do_ , and then it’s Abe whose eyes fall from face to figure, watching as Mihashi’s shirts go above his head as the blond unwraps himself like a present. He’s thinner than Abe, but he’s no longer the scrawny little thing he’d been when they’d first met, no, definitely not - his stomach rippled with the muscles that were  _strong_ , long beneath pale skin and moving as Mihashi took his shirt and held it in front of him, shaking his mussed, sweaty hair and turning to look, Abe’s sure, but not that he’s  _absolutely_ sure because he can’t take his eyes off of Mihashi’s sculpted chest and arms straight out of a work of art.

“Takaya,” Mihashi says, and it’s a tone Abe’s getting increasingly familiar with, a sort of teasing lilt he suspects Mihashi picked up from Tajima, or maybe Izumi, and he wants to be anything other than absolutely stunned by Mihashi’s body but really that’s a joke and he knows it. He does, however, manage to finally make eye contact with his boyfriend, take in the pleased flush of Mihashi’s cheeks and the smile that’s more devious than it has any right being.

“You’ve been holding out on me,” Abe finally manages to say when he's mostly recovered, reaching over to pinch Mihashi’s side and earning an undignified squawk in response followed by charmed giggling. The sound is satisfying, if only because it reminds Abe that beneath this - this filthily delicious-looking  _god_  of a man is still Mihashi Ren, that even though Abe was feeling these strange, hot things in his gut for the first time it was still for his pitcher, his pitcher who was holding out his right arm at the same time Abe reaches out to grab it, fingers going through gentle massages Shiga-sensei had taught him when he’d asked two years ago, pink-faced and hoping his teaching advisor couldn’t read Abe’s mind that perhaps it wasn’t for completely innocent reasons he wanted to know how to take care of his pitcher.

 _Definitely_ going to get him shirtless next time, Abe decides.

 


End file.
